Nor have I turned into a hippy. Quite frankly, I’m happy with it. Not because I need to scratch my chin or comb my facial hair multiple times during the day, but for the ease of it all. To me, my decision to walk around sporting a beard means one less thing to worry about every morning.
Then one day I ran out of body wash. I stopped putting glycerin on my hands and feet in the evening. Or using face wash in the morning. Or night cream at night. Or any cream of any kind associated with any body part or a specific time of the day.
Long story short: After years spent shaving my beard, not letting the hair on my head grow beyond my ears, polishing the shoes before bed every night for work the next morning, I stopped giving a damn. The moment I did stop, though, I began loving every moment of it. Because I’ve realized that the definitive luxury for a man isn’t an expensive pedicure/manicure or a trip to Gokarna Spa – it’s giving up.
Although giving up doesn’t mean smelling filthy or acting like a ne’er-do-well. It’s about realizing that there was a time when a man didn’t have to own cologne, an after shave and a deodorant to be accepted into society. At a time where a man didn’t walk around with a chapstick during the winter and a sunscreen cream during the summer. Cream was once for women. When men other than Osama and his cronies had beards. My beard is a tribute to that era.
Unfortunately, we live in a period when a man with a ‘beard’ has come to be synonym with a terrorist, a drug addict, or an incompetent guitarist in a wannabe rock band. Fidel Castro, in his autobiography titled “Fidel Castro: My Life” wrote that he kept a beard because by not shaving, he saved 10 days in a year.
Unlike Fidel Castro, I do not have noble claims. The reason my beard grows off my face is because I have realized the value of freedom is not having to worry about how you look.
Though, honestly, I’m pretty embarrassed about the nose-digging.
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